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It’s probably not fair to say that walking Scout back in Milton was boring, but in all honesty, one day was much like the next. Walks here are very different – over the course of a 1-hour walk we can experience blinding sunshine (blinding because the sun is very low in the sky, not because it is in any way intense), light showers, gale-force winds, and today – a rainbow.

Today’s walk definitely had its highs and lows – I don’t know if you can call the crows arranged along the street as running the gauntlet, but boy oh boy, it’s hard to believe they weren’t doing it intentionally.

The low today was when Scout and I walked across a field. From the pavement it looked like a grassy meadow, and for the first 50′ or so it was. Then, it turned into a bog and as we were by then in the middle of the field, there was no turning back. You know it’s a damp country when a field at the top of a hill is boggy. My wonderful Vessi shoes lived up to their promise – my feet were bone-dry when we got home, but someone else did not quite fare so well. (The shampoo on the left is mine, the shampoo on the rug is hers – guess which was the more expensive.)

The highlight of my walk? In town a couple of men stopped me on the street and asked for directions (from their accents I’m guessing they were from Glasgow). And I knew the answer! Me, the Canuck who just landed, confidently pointed them to a nice place to get breakfast. I’m still quite chuffed about it.

Much like the stockpile of garbage in my freezer, I had missed one of the re-cycling days, so the glass had started to pile up. Finally glass & plastic day came around and I lugged all the empty bottles to the bin, then to the curb (kerb). Now, before anyone says anything smart, you should know that Tesco’s Finest Sicilian Lemon & Mint Presse comes in glass bottles, as does Baxters Crinkle Cut Beetroot, and Branston Pickle. So the bin wasn’t entirely dead soldiers. (Oh who are we kidding, it was mostly empty wine & gin bottles. So what?)

Scout & I were just coming back from our walk as the garbage truck was rounding the corner. At the same time, the lady down the street stopped across the road to chat to my elderly neighbours. Scout wanted to stay and socialize, but all I could think was, get in the front door and close it before the bin men pick up and open the bin full of empties in front of my neighbours. We made it in before I had to see any grins or raised eyebrows. Whew.

Garbage collection on the islands seems quite involved – every house is supplied with at least three of these waist-tall (well, maybe chest-tall on me) wheelie bins, and much like at home, the colour of the bin designates the contents. The bins are cool – the garbage men (yes, so far it’s all been men) roll them up to the truck and an apparatus lifts the bins, tilts them to open, dumps the contents into the truck, and then sets the bins back down to be rolled back to the driveway. Much slower than at home, but much much easier on the workers’ backs. Again like at home, certain garbage is picked up on differing weeks. The property manager walked me through the rules and schedules the day I moved in: the re-cycling bins (there are two) pick up four different types of recycling depending on the week: glass, paper, metal, plastic; and that’s what the inserts in each bin are for. Except they don’t like you using the inserts, so don’t. It’s because of COVID. The black bins are for all other garbage and now, because of COVID we don’t separate out food waste for composting; it’s all gets thrown out with the trash. COVID is blamed for a lot: one less-than-cheery hotel receptionist told me I couldn’t have a Do Not Disturb sign for my room because of COVID!?! (But that’s a story for another day)

The schedule is also quite detailed and as a result of the bi-weekly black bin (garbage and food waste) pick-up, coupled with my arrival day and trip down to Glasgow, it was several weeks before I managed to be home on that day. Now, after having lived two decades in a neighbourhood with skunks and raccoons, I was leery to leave my garbage outside in the black bin. It since turns out that there are no predators strong enough or clever enough on Orkney to open the bin, but I didn’t know that at the time. So the garbage started to build up. I was able to get rid of one small bag in a petrol station one day, but the staff don’t like you doing that, and I was worrying about the rest. So I froze it. By the time the actual collection day came around, I had two bags of garbage in the freezer, and one in the fridge (as shown). Yep, I was stockpiling garbage. In my own defense I was trying to be prudent – I’ve always had my garbage cans in a closed garage up until now, and a racoon could very easily open these bins sitting in the backyard. And I do not relish the thought of cleaning up the mess they make.

But yes, in case you’re wondering, I do now put my garbage directly in the outdoor bin. Still haven’t mastered the rotation for re-cycling, but I’ve lots of cupboard space for now and I’ll figure that routine out soon.

I’ve been reading the forecasts wrong. At home, every morning I would check the forecast before taking Scout out, to gauge the appropriate attire for the walk. I would focus only on the temperature, and in the dead of winter and height of summer, would also check the wind chill and humidex respectively.

But since I’ve arrived in Orkney, the temperature hasn’t exceeded 13°C or dropped below 8°, and yet, how I feel on any given day can vary widely. I’ve figured it out: the number that matters isn’t the temperature, but rather the wind speed. It can be a balmy 11° out, but if that wind is coming in from across the North Atlantic at 40km/h, you feel it, and you’d better have sweater, windbreaker, scarf, and hat on. On the other hand, 9° with no wind requires only a light fleece for a lovely walk around town.

The wildest weather so far was a couple of weekends ago. I opened the curtains in the morning to absolute sheets of rain drilling into the windows, and the rose bushes in the garden leaning at a 45 degree angle. The forecast advised winds of 35mph and gusts up to 60mph. Sixty miles per hour. That’s 100 km/h or the speed limit on the 401. For 36 hours that’s what we had – wind & rain that just wouldn’t stop. And Scout loved it – we went for our usual walks (well, who am I kidding – abbreviated walks) and she was in heaven. I was head to toe in rain gear and the temperature really wasn’t bad, so I didn’t mind it either. But she absolutely revelled in it.

I have usually been fairly consistent when it comes to observing Remembrance Day – I think it’s an important day to recognize.  This year turned out to be more complicated than I had anticipated. 

I really liked that the local theatre had a huge poppy wall light in the evenings, and everyone was wearing poppies.  So I bought mine.  And I could not figure out how to pin it to my coat.  After several days (yes, days) of wrestling with it then leaving it on the kitchen counter: I finally googled, ‘how to affix my poppy’ and that was me off and running.  Next challenge was what service to attend – after the 2016 incident with a squirrel during the 2 minutes of silence at the Milton cenotaph, I’m leery of letting Scout near anything, but I heard there would be a parade on the Sunday.  Perfect, we’d go to that.  Except, I couldn’t find it.  I wandered around downtown for a while (I’m usually okay asking for directions, but approaching people to ask for the nearest parade felt weird), then gave up and came home.  Imagine my surprise seven days later, to come across a parade of bagpipers going past crowds lined along the streets – unlike Canada, where we celebrate things on or before the day of an event, it seems here they celebrate on or after the day.  Oh well, I’ll know for next year.

My mail is delivered directly to my door through a mail slot – I have not had that since University, so it’s quite a treat, and exciting for Scout too. And six days a week to boot! But I didn’t know where to send mail out. I try to watch for a mailbox, or pillar boxes as some are still known in the UK, any time we are out but they are nowhere to be seen. So I’ve been going to the post office to mail anything and that’s all the way on the other side of town. Yes, I realize saying something is on the other side of town in a place like Kirkwall might be a bit of exaggeration for effect. But I did think it odd that while I saw mailboxes down by the harbour, or outside the post office, there wasn’t one in my neighbourhood.

Well, yesterday, I found it.

There aren’t trees on Orkney. At least not outside of town. But in Kirkwall, there are trees dotted about the town and I live near two little groves. The noise coming from them can be deafening – at first I would have said dozens of crows, but the more I watch, the more I realize they number in the hundreds, and roost in the two aforementioned groves. And caw. I can hear them from my house. Late afternoon the crows start their commute home to the trees (I don’t know where they go during the day, but they return en masse) and the sky is black with them.

They don’t affect our morning walk, but in the evening they can be quite scary with all the swooping and cawing (and I worry too about the pooping, but haven’t seen too much of that) and anyone who knows crows knows they are clever, and can take dislikes to people. It hadn’t occurred to me that moving to Orkney and trying to fit in would include staying on the good side of a murder of crows.

I thought it odd when I saw an umbrella stand full of rocket fireworks on sale in my local hardware store and then I remembered, today is Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes was a domestic terrorist who plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

In 1605. These people have really long memories.

I think Orkney celebrates Guy Fawkes Day with a bonfire at the Peedie Sea (I love that name – if ‘wee’ is the Scottish word for small, then ‘peedie’ is the Orcadian word for wee. The Peedie Sea is a round, man-made pond down by the harbour, full of ducks and swans – this can’t be a fun night for the birds.). I don’t think we’ll be wandering down there this evening; Scout doesn’t mind fireworks, but only from a distance.

My hoose here in Kirkwall doesn’t have radiators. Or a furnace. What is has is in-floor radiant heat. Each room is controlled by a thermostat, and the heat rising out of the floor heats the whole room. It is the best thing ever! No fossil fuels, and when I get up in the morning, the floors, whether bare or carpeted, are warm to my feet. I love this.

Now, I have not yet unpacked. I bought one Ikea dresser and I will assemble it tomorrow. But it means that for the last fortnight (see how British I am? Huh? huh?) I have had my suitcases spread out on the guest room floor, with all my clothes (except those hanging in the closets) laid out in them. It’s not quite the disaster it sounds, as I have my summer wear tucked into 1/2 of one case, and all my sweaters ditto, and so on. But here’s what I’ve noticed. Even though I have the thermostat in that room set quite low, it is still on and all the clothes are warm. That means my underwear is warm, my socks are warm, sweaters, jeans, etc… whenever I put something on, all thanks to the in-floor radiant system. It’s the best feeling in world, especially on cold mornings. I’m actually not really looking forward to moving everything into the new furniture.

So here’s my question: why aren’t dressers heated? I don’t mean anything extreme, not like a curling iron or anything, but just a gentle element, maybe running up inside each leg of the dresser, that slowly generates just enough heat to warm our clothes. Someone should invent that.

I had made the decision that each Sunday was going to be spent not prepping, or shopping, or sorting, or cleaning; but exploring – a different excursion each week.  We’ve done harbours, beaches, and a prehistoric village so far.  But the thought of getting in that car again after yesterday’s 10-hour journey; well, it just wasn’t on. So Scout & I went for a 2 hour walk through the town.  Up and down every alley, lane, close, wynd, loan, and walkway.  We found quaint little gardens, shops with handcrafted jewelry, a store that actually sells bulk food from a dispenser instead of the miles and miles of plastic I see at the major supermarkets, and, as we were walking down one twisty little alley, I heard bagpipes!  Well, that’s it.  I hope we haven’t peaked too soon: I mean, can it get any more Scottish than that?  I never saw the piper, I don’t know where he/she was playing, but as we strolled through cobbled lanes, we were serenaded by the pipes.  Och, aye.